Wire drawing
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Under Drahtzug (also known as wire drawing , wire coil , wire mill , wire work , wire hut or Drahthammer called) were from the late Middle Ages (from the 14th century) to about 1,900 small ironworks referred and other metal works, focusing on the wire drawing , so the production of Metal wire . Outwardly they were similar to the hammer smiths and often affiliated to them.
Production engineering
Procedure
Wire was first made from forged bars in a complex forging process. The starting material was as long as possible round bars (such as bar irons ) that were manufactured in a Zainhammer . These then had to be annealed and could then be pulled through a special device, the so-called drawing iron . This was an iron or steel disc with a series of conically drilled holes of varying diameters. The largest hole was started and the process was repeated for the next smaller one until the desired diameter was reached. The wire had to be heated again and again between the individual passes.
Machinery and tools
The traction was gained with the help of a water wheel . A crank moving back and forth was attached to the side and a pulling device was attached to it with pliers. The bar was gripped with the pliers at the foremost point of the movement and the bar was pulled through the hole of the drawing iron by means of the horizontal movement. When moving forward, the pliers had to be opened and grasped. The associated (historical) craft is the wire-puller . At first he sat on a swing to make this activity easier to carry out. His most important tool was the drawing die , in older times the drawing iron .
From the 16th century, the mechanism was further developed so that the swing was omitted. The pliers were rigidly connected to the crank and could independently move back and forth on a workbench .
energy
Until the steam engine became established , the production facilities needed water power, although treadmills were also used before the 14th century . During the drawing (with the exception of copper), periodic recrystallization annealing of the wires is necessary in order to make the structure of the metal deformable again. For this purpose, the wire drawers operated fireplaces and later industrial ovens ( wire annealing ), so they had to have charcoal available. Iron wire was sometimes annealed on an open fire outside the workshop, which led to numerous fires. From the 18th century on, steel wire was annealed in closed kettles inside the workshop. Older wire drawing shops usually have a water wheel and a chimney.
Raw material and products
Since the 19th century, wire has not been drawn from bars, but from rolled raw wire. The manufacturing process that is part of forming is now called pulling through . The types of wire produced were very different and not standardized, they were also designated very differently (e.g. mousing wire, towing wire, knitting wire, ring wire, Moravian iron wire). Wire was traded in rings (as it is today) at 10 pounds.
Spread and examples
Due to its industrial past, “Drahtzug” is still the name of some districts, companies or event locations. A handicraft tradition dating back to the Middle Ages exists in Altena , for example . The wire roll “Am Hurk” is preserved there as a monument .
The same applies to the designation "wire hammer" in the Upper Palatinate , which can be found in some place names. Production companies were, for example, in the Drahthammer Grötschenreuth or at the former Amberg train station in Drahthammer . As specialized processing companies, wire hammers were much rarer than, for example, the iron-producing rail hammers or the iron-processing sheet metal hammers : In 1475, 60 sheet metal hammers and only 1 wire hammer are mentioned in the Upper Palatinate, in 1609 there are 57 sheet metal hammers and 7 wire mills.
literature
- Dieter Sievermann, Rainer Stahlschmidt: The path of wire drawing to modern industry, Der Märker, Altena 1975.
- Ludwig Beck: The history of iron in technical and art-historical terms. 5 volumes. Friedrich Viehweg and Son, Braunschweig 1893–1895.
Web links
- History of wire drawing on schmelzleiter.de
- Lars Persson: Wire drawing is an old art in Drahtmagazin.de
Individual evidence
- ^ Götschmann, Dirk: Upper Palatinate iron. Mining and iron industry in the 16th and 17th centuries . Ed. Association of Friends and Patrons of the Mining and Industry Museum East Bavaria (= Volume 5 of the series of publications by the Mining and Industry Museum East Bavaria), Theuern 1985, pp. 203-205. ISBN 3 924 350 05 1 .
- ↑ Andre. Valent. Demme: The practical mechanical engineer: a manual for mechanical engineers . Volume 24. Verlag Gottfried Basse, Quedlinburg and Leipzig 1847, pp. 14/15.
- ↑ Joseph Wathner: The complete connoisseur of iron goods and their symbols . Kienreich's writings, Grätz 1825, p. 68ff.
- ^ Franz Michael Hess: History and economic importance of the Upper Palatinate iron industry from the beginning to the time of the 30-year war. Negotiations of the Historical Association of Upper Palatinate and Regensburg , Volume 91, 1950, pp. 5–186.